Anil Gote is an Indian

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and

Member of the Legislative Assembly A member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to a legislative assembly. Most often, the term refers to a subnational assembly such as that of a state, province, or territory of a country. S ...

, twice elected for the

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Modi ...

from Dhule City. He spent four years in jail charged with

counterfeiting To counterfeit means to imitate something authentic, with the intent to steal, destroy, or replace the original, for use in illegal transactions, or otherwise to deceive individuals into believing that the fake is of equal or greater value tha ...

, but has never been convicted.

Political career

A former journalist, Gote entered the Legislative Assembly in 1999 as a

Samajwadi Janata Party Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya) (SJP(R)), also called as Janata Dal (Socialist) is an Indian political party founded by Chandra Shekhar, 8th Prime Minister of India in 1990–91, and led by him until his death on 8 July 2007. Chandra Shekhar w ...

candidate, and was part of an attempt to divide the

Congress party The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

and weaken the government of the time. He was elected as a BJP Assembly member for Dhule in 2009, and was re-elected in October 2014 with a reduced majority. On 30 March 2017, Gote demanded that the

Maharashtra Legislative Council The Maharashtra Vidhan Parishad or Maharashtra Legislative Council is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of Maharashtra states and territories of India, state in western India. Location The seat of the Vidhan Parishad is situated at ...

be scrapped on the basis that the council has no constitutional rights. The opposition parties demanded action be taken against Gote for his remarks. After that, he chose to become a part of the

Nationalist Congress Party The Nationalist Congress Party ( NCP) is one of the nine national parties in India. The party generally supports Indian nationalism and Gandhian secularism. It is the largest opposition party in Maharashtra and is also a significant party in ...

Counterfeiting allegation

In connection with an alleged scheme also involving

Abdul Karim Telgi Abdul Karim Telgi (1961-2017) was a convicted Indian counterfeiter. He earned money by printing counterfeit stamp paper in India. Early life Telgi's mother was Shariefabee Ladsaab Telgi, and his father was an employee of Indian Railways. His ...

for printing and sale of counterfeit stamps and stamp papers, Gote was arrested in July 2003 and placed in custody at the

Yerwada Central Jail Yerwada Central Jail is a noted high-security prison in Yerwada, Pune in Maharashtra. This is the largest prison in the state of Maharashtra, and also one of the largest prisons in South Asia, housing over 5,000 prisoners (2017) spread over var ...

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...

. He was released on bail in June 2007 under a surety of Rs 10 lakh, while the other accused, Suryavanshi, was released on surety of Rs 50,000. The Bombay High Court rejected his application for discharge in 2011, but by October 2014 he had not been convicted of the charges.

References

Living people Marathi politicians Maharashtra MLAs 2014–2019 People from Dhule district People from Dhule Bharatiya Janata Party politicians from Maharashtra 1970 births Samajwadi Janata Party politicians Nationalist Congress Party politicians from Maharashtra {{Maharashtra-NCP-politician-stub